The Machine
by HugePedlar
Summary: Clive and Pedro? Who the hell are they? And why are they working in a mine?
1. One

_I've posted this elsewhere on the Net, so some of you may have read it before. It's almost finished, so I will be updating with a new chapter every day or two. For those of you who have read Enivre en France, this is not the sequel; it's just a short concept story. Enjoy!_

_I was at work a while ago stacking shelves. I was quite tired, and I thought I heard someone calling my name. I turned around and there was no one there. I assumed I'd imagined it, but what if I hadn't? _

**The Machine. Chapter 1. **

'What?' 

'What what?' 

'Did someone…? I thought I heard someone calling me.' 

'I didn't hear anything, Clive,' said Pedro. 

'Weird,' said Clive, shaking his head. He felt like he was waking from a dream. The last few minutes, now he tried to remember them, were hazy and indistinct. He could have sworn that someone had called him. But he must have been mistaken. Looking around, everyone else appeared to be absorbed in their own work. Only he and Pedro were standing idle. Clive shrugged and hefted his pickaxe. The sooner he finished his quota the sooner he'd be able to return to his bunk and collapse. 

The mines made him sick. He spent as little time down here as he could. Fortunately the Commandant was lenient with him – a fact that did not go unnoticed among his colleagues. In his defence, however, Clive pulled more than his weight in other areas. Most of his time was spent with the carts. Ore hacked from the mine walls was loaded into lead carts and transported to the Surface. Clive enjoyed this task. Dragging the heavily laden wagons up the creaking tracks was surprisingly easy. He found his strength increased in bounds as he ascended the tunnels away from the ore deposits. Perhaps the air was bad down there. But that wouldn't explain why no one else got sick. Perhaps he had an allergy to the ore, or the dust. 

Not that it mattered much. He generally only got called down there when a new seam was discovered and the workload increased briefly. Because of the speed and efficiency with which Clive towed the carts, the Commandant had found that keeping him there allowed the equivalent of five more workers to dig the mines. 

The mealtime klaxon sounded, stirring Clive from his reverie. Just in time too, he thought. His breathing had become excessively laboured. Any longer down there and he'd have had to leave anyway. He felt ashamed of his weakness. Despite his prowess with the wagons, he felt he was letting the others down by not giving so much in the mines. 

He filed out with the others, trying to mask his fatigue. 

-------------------------------------------- 

'Hey guys!' 

'Hey Cherie,' said Pedro. 'Gonna join us for tonight's gourmet meal?' 

'Sure, wouldn't miss it,' said Cherie, rolling her eyes as she grinned. She pulled up a seat at Pedro and Clive's table. The gourmet meal on her tray consisted of a perfectly balanced mixture of proteins, carbohydrates and minerals, and resembled in appearance tapioca pudding and in taste absolutely nothing. 

Clive was busy shovelling his own meal down his gullet as fast as he could. 

'Hey,' said Cherie. 'Slow down there, Gonzales – savour the taste!' 

'Yeah right,' said Pedro. 

'Gotta keep my strength up, Cherie,' mumbled Clive between mouthfuls. 

'Of course,' agreed Cherie, gazing at Clive's muscular forearms. 

They ate in silence for a while. 

'So… guys,' began Cherie slowly. 'Do you ever wonder why we're here?' 

'To purge the mines,' said Clive, as if it were obvious. 

'No, I mean… I don't know… Don't you feel like you're missing out on something?' 

'Well young Clive here feels like he's missing out, dontcha man?' 

Clive gazed at the canteen manageress, as she ladled fresh tapioca into the workers' bowls. Cherie rolled her eyes again. 

'No, I don't mean here,' she insisted. 'I mean all we do is dig the mines, day in day out… How long have we even been here? It feels like forever. Don't you ever wonder about the outside world?' 

'What outside world?' asked Clive. 'This is it. The Compound. The mines, the Surface, the dormitories, the canteen – what else could there be?' 

'You've been to the Surface – what's up there? What's beyond the Surface?' 

'Up there?' Clive frowned. 'There's just the Surface. The ore goes up and gets tipped off the Edge.' There's nothing beyond the Edge.' 

Cherie pursed her lips, as if dissatisfied with Clive's answer. But she lacked the ability to put her dissatisfaction into words. She felt there should be something more to her world but, like the others, she had no concept of anything other than her immediate existence. 

Before she could pursue her frustrating line of thought, another klaxon sounded. A large monitor built into the far wall of the canteen hummed into life. As the picture warmed up it revealed the head and shoulders of the Commandant. Beads of sweat glistened on his bald pate. 

'Fellow workers,' he announced. 'May I have your attention. There has been another cave-in at junction eleven. Would all off-duty personnel please report immediately to the area. We have a number of workers trapped behind the fall who require your assistance. Thank you.' 

'Well, here we go again,' sighed Pedro. 'And just when I was about to order seconds.' 

They picked up their tools and hurried to the nearest exit. 

------------------------------------ 

Clive felt the fatigue press down on him harder than usual. He should not have returned to the mine so soon, but he felt obliged to help his fellow workers. As he hacked away at the fallen rock he began to feel dizzy. The world around him seemed to sway and liquefy. 

And then he heard it again. Someone was calling him.


	2. Two

**Chapter 2. **

'Clark….. Clark……' 

'…….Clive!' 

'Wha…?' Clive opened his eyes. The inexplicable images in his head faded before he had the chance to analyse them, to be replaced with a hewn stone ceiling. He was lying on a cart in one of the upper corridors of the mines. 

'He's alive,' breathed a voice. It turned out to belong to Cherie. 

'We thought you were a goner, man,' said Pedro. 'Glad to see you back in the land of the living.' 

'If you can call it that,' muttered Cherie. 

'What…? What happened?' mumbled Clive. He could feel his strength returning, but he decided to remain lying down for the time being until he gathered his bearings. 

'You collapsed, you great wuss,' mocked Pedro. 'Near the cave-in. Had to drag you all the way up here before you started breathing again.' 

Damn, thought Clive. He felt so embarrassed. 'What about the others? Are they safe?' 

'Don't worry,' said a new voice. 'The cave-in is cleared. Everyone is safe.' 

Clive struggled into a sitting position to get a view of the stranger. 

'Commandant!' he stammered. 'What are you doing here, sir?' 

The Commandant lowered his baldness to Clive's level, a benign smile on his open face. 

'Just paying my loyal workers a motivational visit,' he explained. 'I believe a hands-on approach is best for moral, don't you… Clive, isn't it?' 

'Yes, sir!' agreed Clive. The Commandant remembered his name! He felt so special. Few people were paid personal visits by the Commandant, even if this meeting was by mere chance. 

'Please, Clive,' said the Commandant. 'Call me Les. A little informality hurt no one. Well I must be moving on now. I can see you're feeling better already. Keep up the good work, people.' 

And with that the Commandant strolled away down the corridor. Clive turned to watch him leave. 

'Patronising *******,' muttered Pedro, after he was clearly out of earshot. 

'Hey, he seems all right to me,' rebuked Clive. 

'How do you get those asterisks to come out your mouth like that?' asked Cherie. 

-------------------------------------------- 

Clive spent the rest of the day pushing and pulling wagons up the passageways. By the time the evening meal klaxon sounded he was fully recovered. Indeed, he'd never felt stronger. Something began nagging at his brain. 

'Cherie,' he said, when they were sat down in the canteen, 'You remember earlier you were talking about there being "somewhere else"?' 

'Vaguely, yes,' said Cherie, looking slightly puzzled. 

'Well when I blacked out I felt as if… just for a moment… there was something different. Like I was elsewhere.' He frowned. 'I don't know… it all seems so vague.' 

'I wouldn't worry about it, Clive,' said Pedro dismissively. 'You stopped breathing for a while. Your brain was probably just going schitzo.' 

'Yeah, you're probably right, Pedro.' 

Clive pushed the strange feeling to the back of his mind. 

-------------------------------------------- 

Martha struggled again against her restraints. It was no good. She was held far too tightly to move. She called Clark's name one last time before fatigue overcame her and she succumbed to a fitful sleep, one arm splayed over the bulge of her pregnancy.


	3. Three

**Chapter 3. **

The Machine had been badly damaged in the crash. Vast amounts of data and subroutines had been lost. The physical damage resulting from the impact after its uncontrolled descent was significant but would normally have been repairable. The Machine, however, was faced with another, more deadly, threat. It was being poisoned. 

The Machine's memory and motor-control circuitry had suffered badly in the crash. It had engaged its standard emergency subroutines and begun scavenging its local environment for raw materials with which to repair itself. The machine had switched this task, once begun, to its lower automative control centres and concentrated its remaining higher functions on reintegrating its patchwork of memory pockets. 

There was little to reintegrate. As far is it could ascertain, the Machine had been sent to this planet as part of an ongoing data-collection mission. Its purpose was to collect, collate and assimilate information on dominant species' cultures and technical capabilities. The Machine could not determine whether it had visited any previous planets, nor whether its creators had intended its mission to be benevolent or malevolent. All it knew, apart from its core mission objective, was that it had experienced some kind of catastrophic failure in the planet's atmosphere and crash-landed in its current location. 

It had been during this period of introspection that the Machine had become poisoned. The raw materials it had been leaching from the soil appeared to have included a deadly radioactive mineral. The Machine's warning systems had clearly suffered in the crash, and had failed to warn of the danger. Before the Machine could do anything the poison had spread itself throughout its entire system. 

Entire areas of cognition began shutting down in a desperate attempt at self-preservation. Filamental tendrils severed themselves from the body of the Machine. Its main processing subroutines gathered together and shut themselves off from the rest of its systems. It was enough. Barely. 

The Machine was crippled beyond its ability to self-repair. Its only option was to locate an external source of processing power and motor control and integrate it into its own systems. Fortunately it still had limited access to its communications array. The Machine scoured its local environment with as many sensory protocols as it could muster. Eventually, on one of its more esoteric wavebands, it found what it was looking for. 

It was organic. A mishmash of cognitive subroutines loosely bundled together into a barely cohesive whole. But it was enough. The Machine was able to form a tenuous interface with the system and manipulated it into drawing nearer. Once within range of its more powerful transmitter, the Machine forced the organic mechanism to make physical contact. Within seconds, the Machine had penetrated the external device with microscopic tendrils, which burrowed deeper into its own sensory conduits. 

The Machine found a system of surprising complexity and subtlety. It appeared to be built on broadly similar lines to the Machine's own design, except that it lacked the integrations to be truly self-aware. Most of its autonomic systems were entirely beyond its conscious control. Vast amounts of sensory and processing ability were carried out completely independently of the organism's higher cognitive functions. 

The Machine, if it had any analogue of emotion, could have been said to be disappointed. Despite the impressive capability of the organism's ability to process information, the Machine required that the device was able to control its own autonomic functions. Otherwise it would be useless in the Machine's attempts at self-repair. It was almost ready to give up and discard the organic processor. But then it saw something interesting. 

The organism appeared to have a curious mode of operation. Under a particular cognitive state, its conscious and subconscious minds were connected. All its processing systems functioned as a whole as long as the subject was… and this was a curious concept… "dreaming". 

Immediately the Machine saw the possibilities this presented. It could induce a dream-state in the subject's mind, which would allow it to control by proxy the various subsystems of the organism's mechanics. In this way the Machine could hijack the components it needed to repair itself. The subroutines in the organism's mind would migrate into the Machine's systems and augment its own processing capabilities. The motor control systems of the organism could then be used to purge the Machine of its poison. Of course, the cumbersome nature of the organism's natural devices for locomotion would be wholly unsuited to the task – but it did possess a fine system of biochemical pumps and motors which the Machine could make use of. 

The Machine began its task. Soon enough the organic device was completely integrated into its own system. Unfortunately it was not enough. Not nearly enough. The Machine required vastly more processing power and motor function than this singular specimen could provide. It sent out probes to locate and retrieve additional organic components. 

Before long the Machine had over a hundred people working in the mines of its poisoned systems. 


	4. Four

**Chapter 4. **

Rumours had been circulating in the mines. Whispers echoed up and down the corridors. Something was different. No one knew what. No one knew how. But the mood had changed. 

People started asking questions. What happens when the ore runs out? What if it never runs out? What if we dig too deep? Are there other mines? Is there anything beyond the Surface? 

Nobody knew where the questions came from. They had never been asked before. Some dismissed them as idle nonsense. Others condemned them as heresy. Some took them to heart, and pondered their significance as they toiled relentlessly in the darkness. 

Clive was troubled. It had been a long time now since his last journey into the deeper mines. The Commandant had contacted him personally and insisted that, for his own safety, he stay as far away from the ore as his duties allowed. Clive had not argued. 

This, however, was not the source of his troubles. Or perhaps, indirectly, it was. Ever since he collapsed his sleep periods had been disturbed. Voices – maybe one, maybe many – called out to him at night. He was plagues by images that made no sense: Bright lights, wide open spaces, four-legged life forms. He sometimes wondered if he were going insane. 

He'd spoken to Cherie about his problems. Far from dismissing them as Pedro had done, she seemed genuinely interested in discovering what they meant. It turned out she'd spoken to many workers about the rumours and questions circulating in the dank air. She'd had her own questions about their existence for some time now, and lately others had been picking up on it. 

Clive wondered whether Cherie had started the rumours or merely helped spread them. Not that it made much difference. Something had started, and it was gathering momentum. 

-------------------------------------------- 

Martha had given up struggling several days ago, although she still called out to Clark as often as she was able. He was lying a mere few yards from her, cocooned in a network of threadlike metal tendrils. Hundreds of other bodies, many of whom she recognised, scattered the ground; some piled one atop another, others sleeping alone. All were connected to one another by trailing masses of tentacular wires. 

She was lying on the outskirts of the huge group of people. Most of the bodies lay behind her, surrounding a creaking, humming monstrosity of metal. She didn't even know what it looked like, having been ensnared and immobilised before she could gather her bearings. One moment she had been walking down the high street; the next she found herself being drawn to this field on the outskirts of town. Once she was close enough to see the throng of bodies a mass of tentacles shot out and pinned her to the ground. 

She forced herself to skip over the memory of the subsequent probing events. Instead she considered the puzzle of her situation. She was the only person in the whole field, to her knowledge, who was actually awake. Everyone else appeared to be sleeping, or at least deeply unconscious. She was outside, yet as night followed day followed night she experienced no change in temperature – nor even a breeze. There was a road nearby, yet not one vehicle had stopped to investigate the bizarre crowd in the field. She hadn't eaten in days, yet she felt no hunger. 

At least the last puzzle could probably be explained. She was aware that some of the needle-fine tentacles pinning her to the ground had penetrated her skin. She guessed she was being fed intravenously, as were the others. 

She wondered how long she and her baby would be kept alive by this thing. And she prayed that Clark, or at least someone, would hear her cries. 

-------------------------------------------- 

The Machine was having difficulties with some of its new subroutines. It surmised that, in its excitement at having found vast amounts of untapped processing power, it had expanded too far too fast. Excitement? That was another problem. Some of its systems were being corrupted by new protocols. The minds of these people were proving difficult to automate. They needed constant micromanagement to keep them on track. The Machine found this far too taxing to manage by itself. 

It discovered that the conscious entities functioned most efficiently under a hierarchical arrangement. To this end the Machine created a command structure within its network. At the top of this structure it placed a mind with exceptional cognitive ability. It had been struck by this entity's processing power while searching its database of new systems. It had astoundingly efficient logistical algorithms but, possibly more importantly, it possessed superb – and this was a new concept to the Machine – "people skills". This mind could manipulate other external systems so effectively that those systems were barely aware they were being influenced. 

It had worked a treat. Productivity increased exponentially. Soon the Machine was almost fully functional, except for the lingering poison in its electromotive pathways. It was proving more difficult to extract than anticipated. 

But on the whole, things had been going well. The Machine had been able to generate a force field with its new energy reserves, to protect it and its new subsystems from any possible hostility. Its location was now effectively cloaked. There was little to worry about from the outside world. 

The same could not be said about the inside. It turned out that, while the dream-state was highly effective in controlling its new subsystems, it was proving difficult to maintain the dream-state for any great length of time. Some of its new systems were becoming unreliable. And, like a virus, the unreliability spread. It was probably only a matter of time until the network broke down. The Machine prayed – prayed? – that the poison would be eradicated before then. 

Meanwhile, two of its most promising new systems were playing up. The first was the most disappointing. Its Commandant subroutine was being subverted by the very mind controlling it. The Machine had underestimated the implications of allowing it so much autonomy. The mind was breaking free of the Machine's control. Already it had initiated and carried out procedures that benefited other subsystems to the Machine's deficit. One of these procedures had directly affected the other problem entity. 

This other entity had originally been of great value to the Machine. Its very robustness and speed of operation were invaluable in carrying out much of the more mundane operations that serviced the Machine's systems. It was particularly adept at poison-shuttling. There was a trade-off however. For some inexplicable reason, the radioactive mineral that was poisoning the Machine also had a detrimental effect on the new entity. None of the other new systems were affected, but this one started to shut down when exposed for too long. The Machine had found that by combining the mineral with another heavy metal it could render it harmless to this entity. Thus the Machine used the robust mind primarily for poison removal rather than extraction, which turned out to be highly efficient. 

Yet another problem presented itself. Without occasional mild exposure to the poison, the new mind struggled against the sleep protocol – although with too much exposure the mind stopped responding to the protocol as well. It was a delicate balancing act. This had not previously been a problem, because the Machine has simply sent occasional orders down through the hierarchy that allowed a mild dose of the mineral to reach the new mind. However, the corruption of the Commandant avatar was now preventing those orders from getting through. The mind was beginning to wake up. 

And this problem was not helped by the external situation. The Machine had encountered a hybrid system, which it had attempted to incorporate into its own systems like the rest. But there had been a problem. There were two separate systems within the same physical device, yet those two systems appeared to be interdependent. The Machine could not exert any direct influence over either of them. It had had no choice but to restrain the device and hope it didn't cause any trouble. 

But it did cause trouble. It was emitting an almost constant series of audio signals directed at the problem-mind. The mind's operation was being affected by these signals, and the errors they induced were leaking into the rest of the network. 

The Machine, it has to be said, was feeling pretty damn annoyed.


End file.
